Grace After the Meal by Debra Cash

With your permission, friends:

The seed corn of our sorrow
was allowed to germinate
bear tassels and kernels in its season;
the long harvest season stole our youth
and ground it into powder.

Let us accept this meal
in every cell strengthening.

Praise the table and praise the host
praise the merchant and praise the farmer

After that work we could not rest
for another meal was coming;

Our choices were death at the hands of familiar oppressors
or death in a wilderness of our own.

It is always too late
and as early as possible;

Build for us a home that is not slavery
even if it is not redemption.

From: https://jwa.org/blog/liberation-in-poetry-who-knows-one

Date: 2010

By: Debra Cash (19??- )